the wise and the lovely by elwinged

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the wise and the lovely

Did Andromeda know that the sea was haunted
That her beauty was a curse?

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The tales of Númenor are few and far between, and fewer still are those of their ladies— lovely Tindómiel and bitter Erendis and bright Ancalimë; proud Telperiën and merry Vanimeldë and poor, doomed Míriel.

But what of the rest? The women of Númenor who did not directly influence the flow of history, the women who were simply content to exist. What of them?

—

In the end, it comes down to this: Silmariën is of the sea, and Isilmë is of the land.

That is all.

—

This tale begins in tears, and ends in laughter. This, of course, implies a happy ending.

But who says this tale does not begin in joy and end in sadness? Tears can be happy, and laughter can be wild. In the paradox that is Númenor, perhaps catharsis is never achieved.

But who knows? The age has ended; the women are gone.

—

Imagine, for a moment, that the women of Númenor were blessed with foresight. 

Or perhaps you do not have to imagine. Perhaps it was true that those new mothers were offered a glimpse into the future. Perhaps their Elven heritage bled true.

—

Silmariën is born laughing. Her smile is warm, like her skin; her hair the darkest night. Her eyes, when she finally opens them, are a bright, startling gold.

She grows up fast, too fast, but she is the first daughter of the king and obligated to all the responsibilities of his heir— never mind that as a girl, she cannot inherit. She follows sedately behind him in gowns of gilded silk and smooth linen, slippers whispering on the floor, and in her arms can usually be found a scroll of some sort, or— more rarely— some kind of musical instrument. She is a marvel on the harp, see, but rarely has a chance to practise.

She is already twelve, dripping in jewels and weighed down with responsibility, when her sister is born.

Isilmë arrives screaming. Then she takes her first breath of cool night air, and abruptly quiets. This sets the tone for the rest of her life— once she is old enough to talk, she speaks sparingly, preferring to remain silent. She trails after her mother with pleading eyes and outstretched arms, until her mother gently but firmly pushes her away. 

Then she gravitates towards Silmariën, but by then her eldest sister is already burdened by her various responsibilities and rarely has time for her quiet younger sister. 

So Isilmë grows up by herself, the lone sparrow in a family of gulls. She is already different from the rest of her family: her hair light where theirs is dark, her eyes pale where theirs are vibrant. She is told that her hair is inherited from her many-times great grandmother, but she is unsure if that is the truth, or merely a comforting lie.

By the time she turns fifteen, her baby brother Írimon— all of six years old— has been designated heir, and Silmariën, however reluctantly, steps down. She is twenty seven now, and has already fended off advances from unwanted suitors— Isilmë, fifteen and gangly, cannot help but look up to her.

They are able to spend time together in a way they haven’t been able to since Isilmë was born— Silmariën, now more mother than sister, and more sister than friend, teaches Isilmë how to grow into herself. It becomes a common sight to find the two of them together, nestled up in a corner with a heavy book or sitting behind an ornate mirror, dark hair mingling with silver. 

They are closer now than ever before, these two halves of a whole almost— but not quite— reunited.

—

Isilmë lies curled up like a cat, head pillowed in Silmariën’s lap. Above them, the stars glitter. 

Lounging back, Silmariën points out various constellations, tapping out their names in their own secret language.

Look, Silmariën taps out soundlessly, that over there— yes, see it?— that is Varda’s crown, the Valacirca. And see, to our left, our great-ancestor Eärendil. Look how brightly he shines!

Isilmë shifts in her lap. Tell me the story again? She pleads.

Her sister knows by now which story she always asks for. Silmariën smiles down at her, and begins. Once, she says silently, for they do not need words to speak, in a land that lived before the swallowing of the Sea, there was a girl.

(This is how they begin all their tales.)

(There is always a girl.)

—

When Isilmë is thirty, she stumbles across an old book of stories. It is a dusty, crumbling book, written in the old language and adorned with faded illustrations. Still, Isilmë cannot help but flick through.

There, at the beginning, tucked in between the Account of the Valar and the Great Darkening, is a sketch. She does not know who made it— this book cannot possibly be old enough to date to the founding of Númenor, let alone the age its depiction seems to imply. Still, the woman in the picture stares back at her.

Her ears are enough to mark her as one of the Eldar, and the light in her eyes tells Isilmë  that she is old. From there, Isilmë is intelligent enough to pick up on the rest of the clues. The fine embroidery and clothing, coloured in tones of red and gold. The steely-grey eyes. The silver hair.

—

The years pass.

Isilmë is tall, now, lithe and strong as a young sapling, pale hair falling unadorned down her back. She does not adore the sea like the rest of her family does, but dresses in accordance anyway— her wardrobe consists of blue-green silks and cool linens, soft silvers and faded copper, strands of pearls and sea-opals. Silmariën, by contrast, dresses in the gilded tones of the sun— gold touched cream and warm yellows, bright diamonds and mithril, dangling drops of amber and citrine. Her hair, long and dark, is often bound at the nape of her neck and covered in a net of gold and pearls; as delicate and fine as a spider’s web. She often covers her face and hair in a sheer golden veil, blurring her features until one can only see her luminous dark eyes.

They have another half-century together, as sisters and friends, laughing and weeping together.

Then comes Elatan.

He is kind— of course he is kind, their father and mother would not allow anything else— and tall, and handsome, if you like that sort of thing. He smiles softly at Silmariën, and brings her topaz earrings and glimmering gold bracelets and a rope of pearls threaded with mithril. He plays right into her public facade.

Isilmë— well, despise is a strong word. She doesn’t hate him, not exactly. She’s just unimpressed with how he perceives Silmariën.

Understand, if you will, that Silmariën’s whole childhood was spent preparing to be the king— she learned diplomacy at her father’s knee, and power at her mother’s. Understand that she knows exactly how to twist her words to mean something they don’t, and how a pretty face can convince even the hardest of men. Understand that when she smiles and laughs and wears pretty dresses and jewels— it’s on purpose. So that she’s seen as lovely, perhaps a bit vain, but ultimately harmless.

The lovely part is true— as is the vain—, but harmless? Never.

See, Silmariën was raised on tales of her distant ancestors— Elwing and Idril, Lúthien and Melian, Aredhel and Galadriel, Lalwen and Míriel and golden Indis. Indis the fair, Indis the Vanya, Indis the usurper. Indis who was kind and cruel in equal measure. Indis who watched as almost everyone she had ever loved left her. Indis who survived.

Silmariën refuses to be any less than her ancestors.

(They do not call her the Jewel of Númenor for nothing.)

—

Once, when Silmariën was very little, she broke her father’s crown.

Of course it was an accident. She had only been exploring, and had seen a pretty thing glinting in the sunlight, and wondered how it would look on her. She had meant no harm.

Still, her little fingers were not enough to hold the delicate thing, and it slipped from her grasp and cracked against the marble floors.

Later, her father gathered her on his knee and patted her head softly. He explained to her that while the long strands of mithril may have broken, the crown’s true beauty— its jewels— would never crack. 

She had not understood the lesson he was imparting on her at the time. If you are too rigid, you will break. If you are too soft, you will bend. The trick is to harden yourself fully, and become so rigid that nothing, not even the hardiest of blows, will break you.

—

Silmariën is almost a century old when she finally weds, radiant and beaming in the bright sunlight, mithril glittering around her forehead like the sun. Isilmë claps, and smiles, and wishes him dead. Who is he, to come between sisters of silver and gold?

She understands that she is being childish. For once, she does not care.

They disappear into the fading afternoon light, and Isilmë drops her smile. The jewels around her neck feel heavier, now; a weight dragging her to the bottom of the sea. A hangman’s noose, all gilded and glimmering.

She moves to leave, robes of milky sea-blue whispering against the floor, and turns her face away from the altar.

Back in her room, Isilmë looses her hair, waves and waves of silver down her back. She unclasps her jewels from her neck; her ears; her wrists and fingers. Her robes slip from pale shoulders and puddle on the floor. She stares at the necklace in her hand, gifted by her sister; she stares at the tapestry above her bed, depicting the gold and silver of Valinor; she stares at her bed itself, still rumpled from earlier this morning, when her sister had sat on the edge to cry and laugh with her. She sits, and she stares, and slowly she begins to weep.

There is no going back. The clock does not turn back, you will never be allowed to visit those fateful childhood moments again. Do you not see? The door is closed, and it will not open again. The night has passed; this is the morning.

—

Her many times great-grandmother would see her as a child, still.

—

Time continues forward. Isilmë grows, and learns, and never stops missing her sister. She is the Hand of the King, now that her brother has taken the throne— always in the shadows, silent and silver and deadly. She trades her blue-green gowns of youth for robes of grey and red, and twists her hair around her head like the crown she never even had the chance to envy.

Silmariën visits, occasionally, but not often enough for Isilmë to ever truly be satisfied. She has become Lady of Andúnië, of course, and rarely has enough time to herself, let alone visit. She looks happy, though, and Isilmë has to begrudgingly admit that wifehood suits her.

When her son is born, Isilmë pushes down her feelings of resentment towards Elatan and smiles at the child. He reminds her of Írimon when he was young. So small. So delicate.

Silently, hoping her sister still remembers the language they created back when the world was young, she asks what they have named him. Silmariën smiles, and tells her Valandil.

What a heavy name.

—

Historians will not spend long on the lives of Silmariën and Isilmë , noting only their marriages, if any, and possible children. It is not until many generations later— when Silmariën’s long-sundered cousin will gain an interest in the lives of her distant relatives and note that there is little-to-no information about the women of Númenor— that remnants of their story will eventually come to light.

She will find that Silmariën was kind, and gentle, and proud, and haughty, and that she was as close to her sister Isilmë as one can be. That she loved well and deeply, and although she cared for jewels and clothes, she would cast them aside in a heartbeat for the greater good.

And she will find that, despite her father’s long memory and well-kept records, no records can be found about the sisters past Silmariën’s marriage.

Sitting there in the library of Imladris, at once both older and younger than they will ever be, Arwen Undómiel closes her eyes. She is clever enough to understand that this lack of information is for a reason, and it fills her with great pain.

Why have you been forgotten?

—

It happens very quickly. One moment Isilmë is picking her way down the slopes of the Meneltarma, and the next she is being laid out, cold and pale. 

Isilmë’s silver hair fans out around her head; her eyes are gently closed. Her face is peaceful in death in a way it had never been in life. Silmariën stands by her side, covered by a black veil, eyes unwilling to shed tears.

They tell her that it was a kind death, swift and painless. Silmariën nods, and swallows around the sorrow in her throat, and fixes her eyes on the horizon.

She wants to cry— or laugh. Perhaps both. Only Isilmë would not go gently. Only Isilmë would do this to her.

—

The kingdom wears black for months.

—

Valandil inherits his position too early. He has been alone for many years at this point.

—

Silmariën stands on the edge of the ship, her hair wild and unbound. Her lips taste of salt. The waves are higher and higher, now, but she will not be swayed. 

The sun begins to set, illuminating the path in front of her. Overhead, dark clouds gather. The wind rises. The waves grow.

Silmariën closes her eyes and laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

—

Far in the distant West, underneath a light that has been broken and since remade, a girl opens her eyes.

‎‏‏‎ ‎

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Chapter End Notes

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Almost nothing is known of [Isilmë’s] life.

Title from Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Dirge Without Music: “Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.”

Silmariën: maiden of pure light, from silma (pure light) and -rien (maiden)

Isilmë: moonlight, from isil (moon) and -me (denoting intangible things)

Song for this fic is absolutely Si Belle's Andromeda Sinned.